


Tropical Fish

by Strigimorphaes



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Dentistry, Fake AH Crew, GTA AU, Geoff enjoys spoiling his crew, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Mundane, Ryan enjoys being creepy, Sitting in waiting rooms thinking about life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 19:00:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5060266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strigimorphaes/pseuds/Strigimorphaes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even the Vagabond needs a trip to the dentist every once in a while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tropical Fish

Ryan Haywood had blood on his hands, a price on his head, thousands of enemies and an _awful_ day as he waited at the dentist’s office. Of course neither the dentist nor the scrawny woman at the reception desk knew who he was – how could they when the Mad Mercenary always wore a mask and now used a fake name? Apart from his frequent glances towards them or the door, every part of Ryan’s presentation was the picture of everyday ease.

Still, he supposed he would have looked more convincing if he hadn’t had blood around the edges of his lips. If he hadn't been sitting with a loose tooth in his mouth. He could move it around with his tongue if he wanted to. Feel the roots poke out, sharp against soft muscle. The strange disconnect between his sore gums and the bits of flesh still stuck to the bone. It had not slipped easily into its socket; it had been a red mess.

But like Kdin - who was the one who told Ryan to put the tooth back into his mouth and get to a proper dentist instead of relying on what could be fixed up in their hideout - he had seen too many guts to feel squeamish about a little blood.

The woman at the counter had been different. She had winced when he, in response to her question, had garbled out “Tooth” and shown her the offending object. Ryan had almost laughed, then, but had kept it down. Instead he smiled (though mostly with his eyes, as to avoid blood or spit dribbling out). She had told him to take a seat in the waiting area.

That was twenty minutes ago.

Ryan waited still. He had already had a glass of water, and then he had spent some time worrying about whether that could have hurt his chances of getting the tooth back where it belonged. After all, he had kept it in his mouth for almost an hour at that point. It would be sad to let that go to waste.

After throwing out the paper cup, he had stared at the fish for a bit. Lazy, tropical and colorful, they floated carelessly around between plastic plants and shipwrecks. Ryan had talked Ray out of getting some for the shared apartment just a week ago, convincing him that the poor fish would last mere hours around the combined forces of Gavin, Michael and Geoff. He hadn’t bothered to check if Ray had bought some anyway. Maybe some swam around in his own room or some lonely apartment on the other side of the city. He knew Ray had other places even if he rarely went there. Last time had been when they slept together months ago, and the thought of that distracted Ryan so thoroughly that he didn’t notice the woman coming towards him from behind. The small startled noise he gave hurt his professional pride. Of course, the woman didn’t care.

She said a name that meant nothing to Ryan besides being his alias. Then, “If you’d come this way…”

Ryan acknowledged her with a nod, not bothering to speak with the tooth still sloshing around. He followed her down a dreadfully beige hallway and into a small room with the expected dentist’s chair, a desk and a whole mess of gleaming utensils laid out on a table. Ryan eyed them carefully. Most of the instruments – the scalpels and syringes - he knew, though not for the same reasons as the doctor, he wagered.

The dentist himself was a tall man with a receding hairline who greeted Ryan with a firm handshake. His nametag identified him as Smith. An anonymous name for an anonymous man.

After the requisite greeting, to which Ryan nodded and mumbled, the mercenary took a seat in the chair. He knew himself well enough to know that when he felt a chill down his spine, it didn’t show. Nothing betrayed the fact that he, for a moment, felt uneasy about the metal instruments. Thought about how it looked when a scalpel cut through skin. Imagined, for a brief second, how it would have felt if straps had tied him down to this chair. He moved his arms out of reflex.

“So, what happened?”

The dentist’s – Smith’s – voice was calm and friendly in the manner of someone who has spent too long dealing with screaming children. An almost tired tinge to it.

Ryan shrugged. “Accident,” he simply said.

He knew that there were a few too many fresh black and blue marks around his face and throat for that to be accepted as the truth without questioning. And he knew that one does not easily chip two teeth and get another knocked straight out, but he couldn’t very well tell the real reason. That had to do with cocaine, motorcycles, rivals and Russians, and in the end he probably wouldn’t get his teeth done.

Smith raised an eyebrow. “What kind?”

Ryan had never understood why dentists insisted on talking to their customers even when said customers had their mouths filled by instruments that make it impossible to speak. He rolled his eyes. “Work.”

There was a soft _chink_ as the dentist picked up a little mirror. It was uncomfortably large in Ryan’s mouth. He ran his tongue over the back of it, a cool metal circle, without meaning to. It tasted bad, and he knew that the taste was not going to leave him until this was over. Another small annoyance to add to the list.

And if that wasn’t enough Smith kept talking. “Ah,” he said, chattering on as if Ryan could not also taste his own blood mixing with the metal, “What do you do for a living?”

Ryan almost wanted to say _lie_ , but he didn’t. Michael probably would, just to fuck with the guy, but Ryan did not let it become more than a stray thought. “Various things,” he managed to get out. _Like smuggling. And robbery. And murder. Arson._

He could tell by looking at Smith’s face that the other man was not really listening. But now Ryan was thinking that there might be _some_ entertainment to find in the situation despite everything and when the next question came, he took a strange amusement from answering just cryptically enough.

The dentist cleared his throat. “I know my service can be a bit pricy – sorry – but I often find customers with really interesting jobs.”

He removed some of the metal from Ryan’s mouth. He still couldn’t close it, but he was able to move his tongue over dried-out gums and finally feel a bit less sticky. And he could speak a bit more.

“I’d say I do interesting stuff,” Ryan said. “Mostly freelance. Lately I’ve found an… employer who really understands me, you know? I’ve been moving things around, making some good connections…”

“Mhm,” was Smith’s response, “That’s good.” He looked down, never making eye contact, and then suddenly put two fingers inside Ryan’s mouth.

There were very few people whose fingers Ryan tolerated inside of his mouth, and Smith was not one of them.

The look in his eyes apparently made this much clear, and Smith apologized – “This’ll only be a moment, sorry…” Ryan thought he could see him shaking.  _Good_.

As soon as the probing digits were out again, Ryan reflexively closed his mouth before the dentist needed access again.

“So, are we there soon?”

“Well…” The dentist said, eyes darting to the syringe on the table, “Not quite. There’s still a few things wrong in here. You have a problem with needles?”

Ryan shook his head.

“I’ll spare you the pain and administer some anesthesia, ok?”

Ryan nodded. He had been hurt enough for today, he reasoned. It wasn’t like he was afraid of needles – again, he had done too much with them to be squeamish. Didn’t mean he had to relax completely, though, especially because he knew he’d get loopy – loss of control in an unfamiliar place was far from calming. At least he knew he had a knife on him. Jack, always capable of getting anywhere, was on speed-dial. That helped more than the way the dentist was talking now, cooing tones not doing anything to soothe the mercenary.

“There we go. Can you feel this?”

Ryan could not.

He experienced the peculiar sensation of being touched, but being unable to feel it.

Numbness spread through his gums into his jaw.

“That’s good,” Smith said. “The tooth is going to fit in fine.”

For a while there was only the sound of metal against metal. Ryan’s breathing, too, sounding very loud to him.

Smith’s eyes darted from the task at hand to a computer screen. “How about your dental hygiene? Are you brushing your teeth? Flossing?”

_"_ I forget flossing. A small sin I hope.”

The dentist smiled, bone-white teeth almost gleaming in the sharp light. “We all have those.”

"We do."

Even when he closed his eyes, he could see the brightness of the lights on the other side of his eyelids. He folded his hands on his stomach and rubbed idly at old scars around his wrists, at burn marks on his fingers. Smith did not notice. All he saw was Ryan’s tongue in the way and the chipped tooth and the blood on the inside of his cheek.

Time passed. Ryan was good at letting time pass. He could turn phrases and questions around in his head and count seconds for hours if needed.

Waiting.

Finally, the man withdrew, his uniform rustling. The instruments were taken from Ryan’s mouth, the surfaces of teeth and soft flesh suddenly alien.

"You're going to have a splint to hold it in place for a while," Smith said. 

Ryan rubbed the filed-down top of his broken incisor with a finger. Felt the metal running horizontally across his teeth. For a while he sat on the edge of the chair with his legs swinging back and forth. Then he walked off and gathered himself, falling into ingrained patterns. The dentist followed him all the way back down the hallway after making him sign a waiver, and from the desk where he had to figure out the financial parts of the visit, Ryan could see the exit tempting him.

“So…” The women behind the desk said, looking up and tapping her pencil against the paper – “How are you covering this? Insurance?”

“I was just going to-“

“-Let me handle it,” a voice interrupted. From the waiting room, a familiar figure emerged with confident steps, black t-shirt and ink in stark contrast to the grey and white around him. Ryan wagered that most people did not actually recognize Geoff’s face, especially not when he was dressed casually. Yet still they parted before him as if his presence alone told them that he was important, that he had _plans_ , that he was not one you should inconvenience. Geoff laid one arm on the desk and leaned forward. “He was going to let me handle it. If you look, it should all have been paid for under the name of Geoff Ramsey, right?”

The receptionist’s eyes darted to her computer screen for a long second. Ryan could see it ticking away on the clock behind her. “…Oh,” she said. “Well, it looks like that’s taken care of then... Um, Mr. Ramsey.” She folded her hands on her lap and suddenly took on a very deer-like quality. A prey animal in front of them, shoulders tense and breaths small and quick.

“Thank you,” Ryan said, trying to calm her down. He grabbed Geoff’s shoulder with the intent to force him towards the exit. “That was nice. We’ll be going now.”

He looked to his side to see Smith staring at him. Same wide-eyed look, only he soon hid it better. He connected the dots far quicker, remembering a dozen news broadcasts, seeing the little green star tattoo on Geoff’s neck. “Leave,” he said.

Geoff raised his hands, showing empty palms and a mocking smile. Ryan pulled him along.

The stares followed them all the way out to the street. And just as they reached the doors Ryan turned back around and looked at the dentist and his assistant and whoever else was looking. Not too intimidating, because the whole procedure had been quite painless and he’d like to come back another time if he got in another fist-fight like that, but just enough for him to have his fun. The hard, cold look he knew could scare the shit out of anyone.

Then he found Geoff waiting for him on the steps outside.

“What were you thinking?” Ryan asked, and the other man shrugged. “Seriously, your real name? That was a perfectly good alias you just ruined.”

“You’ll get by,” Geoff said. “I wanted to come get you. Might as well spoil you while I was at it.”

Ryan started walking. It felt a little weird, a little anesthetic still in his system – but he had done a lot worse than walk on a lot worse drugs. “Imagine if I had been one of the lads. It's like you're intent on playing sugar daddy.”

Geoff raised an eyebrow. “I think that you have to pay for more extravagant things than a dentist’s bill to qualify for that.”

“Like that jet for Michael...?”

“Shut it.” Geoff's tone was still playful and light. 

The world seemed light, too, the sun reflected in the water and chrome ahead.

“Of course you brought a car, too,” Ryan remarked, “Not even an inconspicuous one.”

“You deserve better,” Geoff said. “After all, it was kind of my fault you lost the tooth in the first place.”

And then he pulled Ryan closer. Their hands found each other, and Ryan let Geoff’s fingers slide in between his own.

Ryan sighed. "You want me to go ahead and forgive you even though you're running these wierd risks - You're _begging_ for police to show up, just getting here in plain sight-" 

"Scared the shit out of them. Did you see their faces?"

Geoff smiled, and Ryan knew he had lost. "It  _was_ kind of funny."

"You look good even with the splint, too."

“Yeah?” Ryan squeezed the hand in his, falling into step with Geoff. “It's okay. All forgiven.”


End file.
